Sixtieth birthday

1. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I might as well be good with it. 
2. The obvious and best one: I’m getting closer to heaven all the time. 
3. Ezra
4. Colleyanna
5. Maggie (Each grandchild should get a separate number in this list.)
6. People excuse  extreme forgetfulness (like when you see her every Sunday and every Wednesday night and you can’t remember her name). 
7. Tuesday is senior day at the thrift store. 
8. No more dreading the decade of the “sixties.” Too late for dread now. 
9. My best friend turned 60 before I did. Glenn Colley will always be older. 
10. All the personal hormonal drama is a thing of the past (and the purse paraphernalia that accompanies the drama is, too.)
11. I get to wear the greatest name: Mammy.
12. I rarely ever have to say “no” to any children. 
13. Nobody expects me to know what’s going on in the fashion world. 
14. People expect me to wear stuff that feels good…like elastic waistbands, Dr. Scholl’s and oversized tee shirts.
15. I’ve by no means arrived in the wisdom department, but experience brings it on and years breed experience. 
16. Teenagers have grown more polite to me each year. Doors are opened and they call me ma’am (Leviticus 19:32)
17. As Ezra put it, “You are old, but, since you don’t have any kids, you have fun.”
18. Neither minimalism nor hoarding bothers me at all. Life’s too short to even contemplate.
19. Peer-dependence is mostly a thing of the past. Seeing peers go to glory more often some how does that.
20. More and  more people I love live in the place where I’m headed.
21. I worry less that my teeth are yellow-ish and am more thankful that most of them are there-ish.
22. People stop wanting you to take computer tutorials and, instead, just upgrade, repair and replace for you. 
23. There was no Lip Sense when I was 30. 
24. There was no sense in which I had thousands of “friends” at 30. But now…
25. I have a crown of glory (Proverbs 16:31).
26. My shoes are in my own closet, my straightener is in my own bathroom, I  generally have a parking space in my own driveway and laundry baskets take a lot longer to fill up.
27. My phone is not fat and bulky anymore. (We won’t think about what IS fat and bulky these days.)
28. My kids think I’ve gotten so smart. My grandkids think I’m way smarter than their parents. 
29. Maybe I AM smarter now that, as a home-schooling parent, I’ve gone through primary and secondary school three times.
30. The value of memory has at least tripled in my old eyes. 

 

But, for all those reasons, it still makes me a little bit sad that the march of time is happening to music that’s on fast play-back. Whatever it is that’s worth doing in this lifetime should be begun this very moment. The rapid rate of the passage of time, as a sixty-year old woman in 2019 reflects, is breathtaking. Hit-and-run years have, right before my eyes, taken their plunder and left the realization that the bulk of the important influence that builds any legacy, for good or evil, has already been exerted.

Ezra explained that water goes up into the sky and gets into the “cwouds” and then it “wains” back down into the muddy puddles and all of dat is called “ ‘vaporation”.As James put it, the vapor of my life is vanishing (James 4:14). But I guess there’s no evaporation in heaven. After all, we sing, “No clouds ever darken the sky.” I know there’s no aging process. Since this then, is my only chance at aging, I pray I can count its blessings and minimize its painful little ironies like “Just about the time you have enough money to do some fun stuff, you don’t feel like doing it, or “You finally learn you should listen to your body—just about the time your body just starts pointing and laughing.” 

And, speaking of listening to your body, mine’s reminding me often of the greatest thing about getting old. The victory flags are coming into view!

When the perishable (body) puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(I Corinthians 15:54-55)